


what we owe to each other

by saidtheticktockman



Category: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Video Game), I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, Gore, M/M, Multi, Psychological Torture, Torture, all that "fun" stuff AM likes, on the bright side benny gets a fiancé tho, tw: Mentions of Suicide, tw: death, tw: future mentions of eating disorders, tw: rape, tw: starvation in general, will update tags as fic goes on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-26 07:38:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21370546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saidtheticktockman/pseuds/saidtheticktockman
Summary: [formerly: "the things we leave behind"]This was once pretentious garbage. Now, it's a fic about the five humans at the beginning of AM's takeover.109 years of prequel, babey!
Relationships: Ellen/Ted (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream), Gorrister/Glynis (I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**ELLEN** screams. 

It’s been six weeks since the Allied Mastercomputer took over. Its blood red logo (_ A.M, _ it says, _ AM _) sets fire to the sky when she wakes and taunts her as she goes to sleep, shining light on the corpses that litter the world outside. Most people, at least ninety-nine percent of the Earth’s population, had died in the original bouts of firestorms and locusts, and the rest are hiding away, hoping the radiation will clear or the machine will stop raging before they run out of supplies. It’s not a good bet, but it’s the only one they have.

There’s not a lot to do but wait it out. Between passing out from exhaustion or lack of nourishment and desperately attempting to contact anyone or anything on the outside, Ellen’s done a lot of thinking. Why does she, a random engineer from New Jersey, survive what killed off her entire family, all her friends? Is it even worth living in a world where so many others have died? She clutches the cross around her neck and wonders if it’s still possible to have faith in a time like this.

The lights flicker on, off again. Soon, the only brightness left will be the giant bloody signal shooting through the sky.

+++

**GORRISTER **screams. 

Curled up in the underground bunker, his wife is rotting. Their daughter had died in the initial bouts of global disaster, and it had only taken a few hours for Glynis to cave in to the voices in her head and slit her wrists with a can opener. Now, her decaying body is blown up to the point where he can hardly recognize the green-eyed beauty he’d married in the springtime. Red liquid comes out of her nose, her mouth. Maggots are… maggots are…

He prefers not to think about it. Instead, he forces himself to make another entry in a worn-down journal he’d expected never to use. It’s coming in handy now as a way to document what may as well be the end of the world. If someone - maybe a few years from now, maybe thousands - was to find his body, they’d know what happened to the human race. _ Casualties of war. _ Billions of them, laying on the ground like in sleep, all because their leaders couldn’t stop bickering like schoolchildren. Maybe, just maybe, whoever came next wouldn’t repeat their mistakes. It’s worth a hope.

+++

The old man screams. 

Around him are plain steel walls. Hastily scribbled notes - some in English, others in German, a few with French writings - cover his desk, the floor, even sticked on to the walls. He can see diagrams and notations, chemical formulas and quotes from researchers with vaguely familiar names.

But he can’t remember writing any of it. It _ is _his handwriting (he’d done a quick test on the back of a water-stained notebook) but he barely knows how to read it anymore. Everything that had once seemed obvious, how each separate formula works and what diagrams indicate what project, is now blurred and shaken in his mind. He does not even know what is happening, only that he can not go outside. Something very, very bad will happen if he does.

In the mirror, a man with wrinkled skin and weary eyes stares back at him. And, suddenly, without knowing how or the reasoning behind it, he realises that his name has always been **NIMDOK. **

+++

**BENNY** screams. 

He is alone in the basement of a house that has burnt to the ground. Marcus never came home after the world collapsed - it was only logical to assume the worst. He is truly alone, stuck with paintings that were once charming and decorations that were once quaint. His childhood teddy lies decapitated on a box he should have unpacked years ago. 

His throat aches from shrieking, yelling his head off, blowing up at everything the least bit enraging or scary. Still, he can’t help it - it’s like a puppeteer’s taken over his body, hollowed him out and stuffed him with terror and rage. It’s a far cry from the once-serene English professor, but after everything (seeing a man and his son catch fire while running for shelter, dying animals collapsing just outside his door, imagining his fiancé dying a million horrible deaths), he finds there’s really no other option. The self refuses to stay static, is always in a state of change. Benny does not get a say in who he becomes.

That thought initiates rage, too. Rage against the world, against the machine that lights up the sky in a brilliant shade of crimson, the programmers who failed to see this coming, the people who failed to stop it. Rage at himself. Within minutes, his vision goes red, his expression turns twisted and manic, and all he can think is _ rage, rage, rage. _

+++

**TED **is silent.

Pacing, but silent. His bunker (hidden under the trapdoor hidden under the bed hidden in a closet full of junk) is buzzing with nervous energy. Ted is certain he is the only one alive, the only one sane, the only one not a monster or demon or creature designed to hurt him. It’s not a pleasant thought, but not unpleasant, either - it’s like everyone’s cards are finally out in the open. No forced niceties or smiles that hide teeth. Nothing to be worried about.

It’s what he’s always wanted. 

Still, at what cost did it come? Peace, humanity, the world as we know it? He’s moving faster now. How does he know what he’s seeing is real? Maybe the doctors had drugged him… maybe it’s that new medication, rispo-something, that’s causing his mind to spin… it’s all a trick, a trap… he can’t trust anything.

It’s only when he feels he’s about to collapse from the exertion that Ted finally sits down. He doesn’t think he was always like this. There were times in his life, good and bad, where he’d trusted, comforted others and allowed himself to take comfort in return. There were times he had friends he could let his guard around. He’d had a girlfriend, even, a dark-haired beauty named Diane with the voice of an angel.

He’d pushed them all away, lashed out and wounded them so he wouldn’t get hurt. It doesn’t matter now. They’re all dead, anyway, rotting somewhere on the streets or in their houses. It’s probably better that he’d been alone, didn’t have anyone to lose when the Mastercomputer went rogue, but as he sits on the side of his bed and staring out at the wasteland around him, he realises how much he’d do for one last dance with a friendly face.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

_ During the past six weeks and four days, _ **GORRISTER ** writes, _ the same logo of the Allied Mastercomputer project has been lighting up the sky. Today, something has changed. _

It started off with a flicker, a few red pixels disappearing and rearranging themselves, the kind of glitch you’d see in a bad sci-fi film. But, like a virus, like the infection bubbling around Glynis’s wrists, it spread. Now, as Gorrister looks up at it (with urgency, with terror, in the way prisoners must look at the man with the axe), the symbol is barely recognizable as anything beyond a spread of color. And - two hours and thirty-one minutes ago, according to his notes - it had started _ howling. _

_ I’m pretty sure, _ he continues in the notebook, hoping his handwriting is legible, _ the howl comes from the symbol itself. It screams, and that scream acts like a tornado, sucking anything - corpses, building, trees, no matter - and everything into its abyss. _

Hesitation. Then, he writes: _ I am no longer sure that all this is an accident. _

It’s true. How could he be? Those scientists were supposed to be the best of the best, a team of geniuses working day and night for something the president claimed was _ damage control. _If the Mastercomputer had shut down, even exploded, he might have believed them, but as it is, he can’t help but be cynical. They created Armageddon, all by mistake? All these torturous disasters at once?

Gorrister flips through the other pages of his notebook, trying to make out his old writings. He’s been running on chickpeas and nutritional yeast for days now, and can hardly remember what he wrote. He finds some theories - _ this is all an attack meant to be launched on the opponent, some database virus from the other side, a last resort to drag the world down if the US lost _\- that he can at least make sense of. Others are too complicated for him to still understand, things he’d researched before his world had collapsed. 

Occasionally, barely-legible ramblings cover entire pages. They say: _ GET OUT, COME HERE, WANT, _ and most of all, written with such harshness that the letters bleed onto the next page, the word _ HATE. _ He doesn’t remember writing it, but it may be the malnutrition going to his brain. Either that, or he’s going crazy, and that’s _ not _something Gorrister is ready to deal with yet. 

No, for now, he must assume that this is real. The war, the machine, the subsequent destruction. And, despite the ache in his muscles and the silent dripping of helplessness, he must do whatever he can to make the most of it. Best case: the computer burns itself out, and he can aid other survivors to the best of his ability. It’d be like one of those novels he used to read in high school, of ordinary people building societies from the ground up. But even if he couldn’t do _ much _ good, it’d be enough for someone to find his body and the notations along with whatever food he’d have left, or a researcher decades from now knowing what happened during those dark days where there was almost no one left. Maybe another civilization somewhere in the sky would know there had once been life on earth. It’s a long shot, but possible. He needs to believe he is, in some small, insignificant regard, not completely powerless. 

Gorrister finishes his entry with a description of the world outside, as seen from the tiny panel at the top of the bunker. _ No life, _ it ends up saying. _ No light. No birds or footsteps. Only the merciless red glow and a man to document it. _

A shiver passes through him as he shuts the book once more, but Glynis is still sleeping in his jacket - _ no, _ he has to remind himself, _ not sleeping _\- and he doesn’t have the heart to take it away from her. It was the one he’d given her when they first met; nothing romantic, at first, just a nice gesture for the hell of it. And, as he looks at her now, small and curled up on the floor, he realises the true tragedy of his situation: that his wife hadn’t been living for quite some time. 

Most things fade into obscurity after spending so long without proper sustenance. The time he first saw Glynis, however, is still clear as day. 

They’d actually met in the same way he imagines kids would: through email. She’d been to a few of his organised protests before (although he’d never noticed her), and as a prominent environmental activist herself, she wanted to team up against the closing of a mom-and-pop shop that was set to be replaced by a leather factory. After looking up some of her work, he’d agreed. 

Glynis had been twenty-two when they first saw each other; Gorrister, thirty-five. He supposes now that it had been the reason he waited so long to make a move - it felt strange, after all his years of chivalry and moral reasonings, to fall for someone that much younger. He’d made sure, and then double-checked again, that she wouldn’t feel preyed upon. That she knew she could say no. Never speak to him again, if that’s what she wanted. 

Thankfully, she didn’t. To hear her tell it seven years later, she’d had a crush on him even before they officially met and had tried to make it clear a _ bunch of times. _ She thought he was uninterested; really, he’d just been oblivious. It’s a perfect cliché, but Glynis was so _ smart, _ so _ kind _ , so _ lovely _ … and he’d been a random truck driver from Arizona. At first, even _ thinking _about her romantically felt like a sin. 

Abstaining from _ that _had been almost impossible. Her lips were so beautiful then… and are still so now, but worn from years of nervous biting. The lovely red hair that once fell down to her waist is almost completely shaved from her recent rounds of electroshock therapy. And that look in her eyes, like a wounded deer, like a little animal backed into a corner… well, it was a mercy that death had stolen it from her. Dead, she almost looked at peace. 

He doesn’t want to remember her as the woman she’d been in recent years. It doesn’t seem fair - to her, to him, to anyone who’d cared. Once (around a week into isolating), he’d tried drawing her from memory: the dimples when she smiled, her array of freckles like a starry sky, the way her eyes lit up when she saw him. It hadn’t worked. Gorrister had never been a particularly talented artist, and he doubted _ da Vinci _ could paint something that wouldn’t be an insult to her memory. So he just tries, every day until he’ll die of hunger or radiation or whatever will get him, to burn her image into his mind. Green eyes like gemstones buried underground. Flowers in her hair, a crown. A glint of pearl teeth. White dresses and holding hands and _ smiles, _all the smiles in the world, so contagious that you can’t help but laugh along. 

A single maggot crawls out of the body’s nose and Gorrister finds himself stepping away. Whatever that _ thing _ is now, it’s not the woman he married. 

+++

**BENNY **doesn’t recognize himself in the mirror anymore.

The most glaring change is that he’s _ grown. _Before everything, he’d been 5’11 and perhaps a little bit thick in the middle (but Marcus would say it was adorable, would kiss his stomach before sleep, so it never bothered him) but overall a normal physique. But as the days go on, his clothes are beginning to shrink. He towers over boxes that he used to get up on his tiptoes to reach. If this was a theoretical experiment, he’d say he’d gotten six-or-so inches bigger. 

The problem is that it’s not anything close to theoretical. It’s _ real _ and it’s _ happening, _ this strange new sensation in his body that left him not just taller but fitter too, replacing pieces of chub with sinewy muscle. Under normal circumstances, it’d be a dream come true for most men, but these were most decidedly _ not _ normal circumstances. And, although he tries to remain rational, he has to wonder: what is happening to him - and what will he become when it’s done? 

Thinking he’s imagining it works a little bit, but it’s not much better. In all his years as a professor, he’d never once read about this kind of unprompted body dysmorphia. Still, it’s better than some of the ideas he’s had (symptoms of spontaneous combustion, rare diseases activated by the radiation, the Mastercomputer somehow coming alive and weeding him out) so he lets it be. Maybe it’s just a normal thing that happens when a million impossible things crash into each other? Speculating won’t help him, even if it’s tempting. 

He taps his fingers (an old habit that he’s glad to have back, a sliver of his old self) and tries to think of the next move. Suicide? Not an option if he’s gotten this far. Trying for the outside? Don’t be ridiculous. Say, what would he do if this was purely theoretical?

The answer comes to him in a second: gather more data. Despite the obvious physical changes he’s experiencing, he doesn’t know how it affects him. He could take a guess that the height combined with the new muscle would lead to some sort of physical prowess. Would that mean that this is something to help him, a new kind of evolution? And the added length… what purpose is that in an underground bunker?

Benny looks around. There’s a ceiling fan on the floor, unplugged and half-broken. Some stuffed animals and picture books long past their prime. A wooden rocking chair. And boxes, tons of them, as far as the eye can see, but with nothing to open what’s inside. 

He sighs. _ There’s not a lot to work with here. _

But he’ll go insane with curiosity if he doesn’t at least try, so he makes his way through the room. If only he had some sort of knife, he could get whatever’s in the boxes open. Maybe there’d even be something of worth inside, something he could eat or drink, a flashlight, _ something. _But nope. Just plain, useless brown boxes. 

In his frustration, he finds himself hurling one labeled _ CHRISTMAS _across the room - and this, too, is odd. Before, when he felt upset, he’d maybe go on a walk or play some tennis to relieve his frustrations, and then come back to discuss the problem in a rational manner. He barely raised his voice back then. But this new behavior, this kicking and screaming and throwing things around? He doesn’t quite know what to make of it.

The other strangeness in that situation only hits him when he’s already tossed three boxes and is about to throw the rocking chair across the room. When they first moved in two years ago, he hadn’t been able to lift that box. No, Marcus had to carry it all the way down, laughing at him and kissing his neck as Benny stood there grinning like a fool. And not just managing that now, but to _ throw _it? With relative ease, too?

That’s new. That’s really, really new.

He looks for the heaviest box they have - the one simply labeled _ BENNY’S _and filled to the brim with old literature - and tries to pick it up. There’s some resistance, but he does it. He frowns; that box had been around forty pounds. It’s not ridiculously heavy, but coming from the man who used to get sore muscles from carrying his textbooks across campus… it’s a big difference. 

_ God, he needs a pen! _ He finds a thick marker lying next to the still-intact rocking chair, but _ drat _, there’s nothing to write on. Maybe the walls would do, but he doesn’t want to feel like a madman, that guy in horror movies who always ends up on a killing spree. He thinks, considers writing it on his own arms, and then looks at the box - and, with as much force as he can manage, throws it onto the brick floor. 

It tears. Pages of books fly everywhere, admittedly hurting what his fiancé would call _ his wittle professor heart _ but useful considering that he’s documenting his weird bodily mutation, and he quickly grabs a page of Adler’s _ Understanding Human Nature. _ It feels like his hand is swollen, but he manages to write the words _ what is happening? _

Bullet points. One:_ unexplained growth, approx. six inches. _ Two: _ unexplained strength, can lift 40(?) pounds with relative ease. _ Three: _ unexplained anger management issues. _ Four: _ result of the Allied Mastercomputer? _

Next, he stands on a box and tries to touch the ceiling. He manages. He piles on another one and finds his head hovering just below it. It says that each box is sixteen inches tall, and he thinks he remembers the cellar being nine feet. If that’s true, and he’s standing on thirty-two inches… subtract maybe a few inches, those that are still between him and the ceiling… he’d be around 6’3. Admittedly, the math takes him quite a while (his brain feels sloppy, but maybe that’s because he hasn’t really been using it for a month), but when he figures it out, the fact that there’s a four-inch difference while he’s eating one meal a day shocks him. 

After that little experiment, he has to sit down for a while. Even thinking about this weird shifting body makes him nauseous, twists his stomach into knots. He scrolls through a textbook, some _ Medicine For Beginners _copy he’d gotten from an aunt who’d mistaken him for a nursing student, and finds nothing. Unknown territory. 

Benny gulps, begins to sweat, and pulls off his shirt (a cashmere sweater that’s being stretched to the brim) to release some of the tension. There, he finds a mass of brown hair in swirls on his chest and sticking out of his armpits. He’d never been a particularly hairy man (Marcus loved calling him a _ twink _ , even if the description didn’t really fit), either. Hesitantly, he adds that to the list: _ adult lanugo? _

_ Medicine For Beginners _says that it’s a sign of an eating disorder. In his case, it doesn’t apply - but what about starvation as a whole? Hair works to keep your body warm, and lack of energy makes you colder… there’s a logical connection to be seen there, but since when has anything been logical since the blood red logo of the Mastercomputer showed up in the sky?

When he’s collected himself (as much as one can collect themself when they discover they’ve grown freakishly tall and hairy, anyway), he decides on doing some mental testing, just to check if anything’s changed. He starts off with the basics - one plus one, six times seven, how do you spell _ morning _ and _ night? _\- and moves on to some other stuff, writing sentences and even testing out a few practice questions from some of his textbooks. His handwriting’s gotten sloppier, but maybe that’s because of the thick marker, and he can’t remember all the answers he used to know by heart. Still, starvation can do that to anybody. It doesn’t mean it has anything to do with whatever’s changing him. 

He writes down _ possible mental decline _ anyway - and, as he does so, he could swear he heard _ laughter. _

He's biting his lip now. The growth, the strength, the sluggishness… all of that could be explained away. But that sound, like a grinder gnashing its metal teeth? Unless he’s gone barking mad, there’s no way to rationalize _ that _in an empty world. 

Still, he tries. And just as he’s about to come to anything resembling an explanation - maybe it’s another kind of earthquake, maybe a survivor somewhere, maybe a _ new _ kind of torment that the end of the world has brought him - it _ speaks. _ In a low growl, a rumble in the core of the earth, it says: _ come out, come out, wherever you are… _

+++

_ Come out, come out, wherever you are… _

**ELLEN** ’s first thought is that she’s finally taken the leap into insanity - and, at this point, it’s almost a relief. I mean, who else hears creepy voices in the middle of an abandoned building? She’s spent so much time hungry and alone that she can hardly blame herself for losing it. It might even be _ better _, to go mad before things get even worse, when food runs out and she starts to lose all hope?

But she wants to rationalize this sound, this _ voice _ so badly. It… it could be an old doll, right? Maybe some scary Chucky-type toy that a co-worker’s kid left behind, or a video game character blabbing from a speaker somebody had left on? She had enough time to come up with a million reasons why she heard a strange voice after all that silence - and enough smarts and gut feeling to know that none of them were true. 

Whatever that voice is, it was calling to _ her. _And, ridiculously, she wants to follow it. 

Her muscles burn. Suddenly, hearing whatever-it-is speak, she feels a determination like she’s never felt before - she wants to get _ out, out, out, _she wants to walk with all the strength she has left towards it without even knowing her destination. It’s a stupid idea to leave the safety of her office (which had been surprisingly well-prepared for doomsday), one that could easily kill her if she tried, but after all the starvation and loneliness and hurt, she lacks the strength to resist. 

Ellen trembles. Her heart starts beating faster, her chest tightens, and, _ oh, God, she better not be having a panic attack right now… _Sweat beads up on her forehead. Shit. Stay or go - both situations are terrible!

So, what now? She’s got maybe ten, fifteen proteins bar left. Three large containers of water lie around in a closet somewhere. A nearly-empty jar of honey is on her desk, along with a handful of whole whole crackers. How long could she stretch that out? If she only had two bars a day and a single glass of water… the honey could help when she passed out, and the crackers would be for emergencies. Still, it wouldn’t last forever. She’s stayed alive on luck so far, but if she wants to keep it that way, she needs to do _ something _. 

And, yeah, _ maybe _ following a random voice is more than a long shot and will _ probably _leave her dead… but in a time like this, what’s her other option? Wait here in a building full of empty seats until starvation gets her? Die in an abandoned building where no one will ever find her body? It’s a worthless hope, but the outside is all she’s got left to count on. 

But before she can move (and it’s _ hard _ to control herself, like playing tug-of-war against a weightlifting champion), she’s got to deal with this goddamn anxiety. Okay, okay, she’s got this. _ Breathe in for four seconds. Hold it for seven. Breathe out for eight. In for four. Hold for seven. Out for eight. Four. Seven. Eight. Four. Seven. Eight. Four. Seven. Eight. _

She stays like that for a few minutes - and probably should have for longer, but her entire being is _ begging _her to leave for whatever inexplicable reason and she can’t hold it off - before letting herself go. And it’s almost like her body’s moving itself when it takes her through the doors, past the graveyard of bodies, and out into the world. 

For a while, all Ellen can do is walk. One hour passes, then two, then three, and she’s still going. Her legs are tiring, her feet aching from walking in kitten heels (because she’s an idiot who used to wear those to work for a reason she can no longer remember), but at this point, it’s a compulsion. She isn’t sure she could stop if she tried. In a backpack that used to be her colleague Matty’s, she carries some water and most of the food with her, but that’s about it. She has no idea what she’s going to do when the darkness comes. 

In around twenty-minute intervals, laugher echoes from overhead and shakes the earth, sending Ellen sprawling onto the floor. The prospect of her imagining everything is beginning to seem less like a possibility and more of a hope, because even if she can’t trust her own mind right now, the bruises on her hands and knees are _ very real. _

The Mastercomputer logo glitches overhead. Once again, she wonders if it really could be the computer system that’s causing all of this. She can’t imagine how code with that much power would even work, but then again, she was only a _ good _ programmer and not a _ great _one, and this thing had been designed by the best that planet Earth had to offer. But still, if humans hadn’t figured out how to create half the things that are going on right now? Ellen may not be among the top ten coders on the planet, but she knows how a program works. It can only do as much as you tell it to do. 

Unless… what if, somehow, the Allied Mastercomputer had gained the power to _ learn _ ? After all, it’s main function had been to oversee things to complex for human minds, so it must have stored a great deal of information, but could it really have evolved beyond its original ones and zeros? And learning thing despite your purpose, rather than because of it, implies a _ want _to learn. Not sentience, necessarily, but definitely something more than anything she’s ever seen before. 

Huh. It’s definitely not more than a working theory, and there are more than a few holes in her logic, but it keeps her mind occupied as she walks. Her feet are starting to blister now, and it feels like a few of her toes are bleeding. And there’s that laughter again… Ellen barely fights it as she falls. 

_ Why would it do this, though? _ she thinks as she collects herself, brushes the dust off her jacket. _ That’s the problem. Say you’re right, and all of this is the Mastercomputer’s doing, why would it choose all of this? Just to see if it could? _ No, that’s too human, even for an artificial intelligence. _ Can it even help it? Is it some sort of giant bug in the system? _ Her head pounds. _ And who’s hateful laughter is that booming overhead? _

Lightning strikes, broken glass tears through her shoes, she slips and falls on pieces of rubble more times than she can count. Still, she keeps on walking. 

+++

It has been a long, long time since that hateful voice called him to move, but **TED**’s feet remain firmly planted on the ground. He won’t be swayed that easily, moved like a chess piece by an urge, a little pain. Whatever wants him gone, he won’t listen to it. Whatever wants to trick him will have to try harder than that. 

Still, it’s a battle. Ted hasn’t eaten in nearly four days and he can’t find it in himself to do much of anything. Whenever he feels he’s about to give in to the other’s words, he claws at his skin until the feeling goes away. His arms and chest are bleeding from it, but it’s worked: so far, he hasn’t made a single step towards the outside. 

He stays like that for God-knows-how-long, motionless and fighting against himself. It feels like he’s stayed there for weeks; it’s probably been hours. The laughter from the sky gets louder, more painful. And Ted is certain the voice isn’t in his head when it says: _ I’m sick of you. _

_ Don’t you want to leave, Ted? _ it coos at him, sends a shiver running down his spine. _ Aren’t you tired of fighting me? You know I’ll get my way eventually. Come out, come out... _

He waits, and the voice goes silent. It’s pure agony now. Joan of Arc, Hypatia, generations of those called witches - _ is this what it’s like to burn? _ It feels like his heart will stop beating from shock, but it doesn’t, a merciless _ thump-thump _against his bony chest. Everything is ringing and blurred at the edges. Everything is broken or breaking. There is no end to it. 

The pain only stops when he’s at the brink of insanity. Whatever’s up there smirks - he can’t see it, but he’s sure it smirks - and cackles like a woman’s squeal. It turns into a scream and takes all the air with it. 

Not metaphorically. It physically steals his breath and he chokes, can’t think, can barely see properly… it lasts for a few seconds that are stretched out to an eternity. And then, when he is finally allowed to take that long-awaited gasp that fills his lungs with something stronger than life, he _ flies. _

The air rages. Ted is caught in a storm that screams and battles against him, threatens to tear his skin off. It slams the door open and shoves him against the wall, shoves him out the door, shoves him into the remnants of the earth and drops him onto the ground. Despite the hard fall, he doesn’t look hurt. Everything’s working properly, but it still aches like a son-of-a-bitch. He covers his mouth to hold in the scream, and all the while, whatever’s out there is taunting him, singing _ come with me, come with me… I have lost my patience, my good friend. _

As the wind takes him, blurring what used to be his home into a splash of muted color, he tries his best to think. Wherever he’s going, he’s got nothing with him - no food or water, no materials, not even those green little capsules he couldn’t bring himself to swallow half the time but kept him same when he did...

Is that what’s happening to him now? Is this _ it _, that loss of sanity that all those doctors and therapists and counselors had warned him about? He doesn’t know. Does a madman ever know he’s gone insane? He could just have been wiped away completely, dead or dying, living some weird fever dream that involves flying and bodies and the complete destruction of the universe. The thought isn’t as comforting as he thought it would be. 

For eternities, he is dragged through the sky, body out of control. But eventually - not for a long time, that’s for certain, but _ eventually _\- it slows. He thinks he spots another man caught in the same storm (old and bony with haunting eyes that he can’t make out the color of) but isn’t sure, it’s all gone by so quickly. Then, he sees something else: a crater, red and domineering. He’s getting closer to it. Inside is a black hole of empty space. Without needing to think, he knows that this is where he’s headed. 

Another face passes. A woman this time, dark-haired with brown skin and a look of concern mixed with the pain. Her long hair whips in the wind and stings her flesh, leaving little red stripes that seem to fade the second after they appear. It’s like an invisible hand is healing her, but judging by her flinches, it doesn’t seem to protect her from the pain. 

The crater is getting larger and larger. It’s hard to contain himself, fight against the deep guttural hurt that lurks in his gut, so he grits his teeth against the urge to cry out and ends up with a pathetic whimper. Quietly, he’s sure neither the man nor the woman heard - but it doesn’t even matter. _ He _did. And he hates himself for being so weak, so pathetic, barely barely holding back the tears that are threatening to break free, whereas a stronger man would surely manage a strong face. Damn it. Damn it all. 

A laugh, a short one, overhead. If only a sound could stab you in the stomach and pull out the knife, leave you to bleed. Then, whatever’s been holding him lets go and he falls, everything shattering like glass around him until the world is nothing but him and the pain. 

Beside him lies a figure. Blonde. Face bloody, hands bloody, clothes bloody. A woman on the other side. She’s bleeding, too. Two more shadows lying in the dark, one he can recognise as the old man from earlier and another one with crushed glasses that he’s never seen in his life. He’s just about to say something - maybe an innocent question, maybe an accusation, maybe a theory on how all this came to be - when his vision goes dark and he loses consciousness. 

Laughter above. Fade out.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone but Nimdok gets a POV in this one, oops. I never intended to let them all narrate for every chapter but still kinda weird that I'm excluding him even if it's by accident.
> 
> Anyways, you guys know the drill, if you like this so far pretty please leave kudos (and maybe even a comment?) to fuel my poor author soul


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